


No Rest for the Wicked (Rebooted)

by sailorartemis



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Angel and Nisha form a really weird friendship, Angst, Apocalypse, Character Death, Character Study, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, For Science!, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, Handsome Jack (Borderlands) Being an Asshole, Hurt/Comfort, JACK IS NOT A GOOD DAD, Minor Character Death, No Sirens, Not Happy, Not sure if the ending is happy or sad yet, Torture, Vaughn is a Good Bro (Borderlands), Yvette sucks, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, syringes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28168314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailorartemis/pseuds/sailorartemis
Summary: When the world starts to fall apart, will our not-Vault Hunters have what it takes to survive?---A zombie au starring the cast of Borderlands 2 and some from TFTBL. Prepare for major character death. No one is safe and ships that are in the tags have a chance of being torn apart.
Relationships: Angel & Nisha (Borderlands), Angel/Rhys (Borderlands), Athena/Janey Springs, Handsome Jack/Nisha (Borderlands), Lilith/Roland (Borderlands), Rhys & Vaughn (Borderlands)
Kudos: 4





	No Rest for the Wicked (Rebooted)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I hope you enjoy this! Please be nice in the comments and remember to wear a mask!

**OUTSKIRTS OF HELIOS, 1:03 PM**

**ANGEL, CODENAME: GUARDIAN ANGEL**

She screamed.

The man’s teeth sunk into her skin, sending blood gushing out of her arm. 

Red spilled from her wrist, staining her white dress.

The world was spinning, moving in slow motion as she wrestled her arm back and out of the man’s grip.

She screamed again as she willed her legs to start moving, ignoring the sight of her flesh in the monster’s mouth.

The world returned to proper speed as she turned, sprinting through the alley. Angel kicked the fence behind her, closing it on the man.

She knew exactly what this was. Her father’s virus. She’d seen him work on it before, seen him test his vaccines on hardly willing participants. 

And now they were outside the walls of Hyperion. Now they were part of the real world. Of all things she would have expected on her day out, this was at the bottom of the list.

Angel had broken out of her room countless times before, sneaking out of the window to get just a short taste of freedom. Today had originally gone how all days went. A nice stroll by her favorite park, picking up a churro with some money she’d stolen from her father. Then she’d ducked into an alleyway to avoid a man she recognized as working for her father and…

And he bit her. 

It was so sudden. A flash of pain, a moment to reflect on her mortality, and the thudding of her footsteps as she sprinted down the alleyway.

Eyes were on her as she exited the alleyway, hitting the pavement of the road. 

But their eyes quickly moved onto the monster behind her instead.

**\---**

**CRIMSON RAIDER HEADQUARTERS, SANCTUARY, 2:12 PM**

**MAYA, CODENAME: SIREN**

Maya had never planned on staying in Sanctuary.

It was cold and dull and worst of all? Under Hyperion control. The big man, constantly trying to shut them down, keep them from helping people. When the official men were easily swayed by bribes and didn’t give a shit about the common man, it was up to a few former fighters to find some legal loopholes and defend the innocent that way.

Pandora law permitted the existence of citizen’s militias so long as they didn’t interfere with official law enforcement. And it never did, considering they didn’t care about the people of Sanctuary.

So that left the Crimson Raiders as the true defenders of Sanctuary.

At least until Jack’s men received orders to start caring about Sanctuary.

But care was a strong word for this, Maya believed. In her opinion, it was more of a power-hungry obsessive little testosterone-fueled rampage. 

She was watching them from the balcony, watching them swing their guns around in a show of power. And a show of something else, probably. Maya was pretty sure this was how they compensated.

Roland opened the door to the balcony, earning Maya’s attention as he sat down next to her.

“Maya.”

“Hello, Roland.” She turned towards him, immediately wondering what he was planning. Roland was all business. Maya knew he was coming to her to plan a way out.

“Are they still showing off down there?” He asked, peering over the balcony.

“You know it.” She sighed, kicking her legs up on the railing. “Still haven’t shot anyone, thankfully, but they have gotten close. Someone tried to leave through the main gate and-”

They were cut off by a gunshot and yelling. Both Maya and Roland jumped up, just in time to spot a body crash to the ground in front of one of the Hyperion guards.

Despite the yelling in the street, the orders being called out at all those standing by the deceased woman, the world had never sounded so quiet.

“Shit…” Maya’s voice broke the tension that followed between them.

Roland pulled her down, the two now hiding behind the little half wall. Their only defense from the power hungry soldiers that no longer hesitated to murder. “Stay down,” he whispered. “We’re already on thin ice. We can’t give them any reason to come after us.”

“They just killed that woman, Roland!” She whisper-yelled, eyes widening. Maya had seen terrible things before, but never a public execution. “This is exactly what we swore to stop and you’re making me hide?!”

“We can’t do shit for them if we’re dead or locked up, Maya. We’ll fix this, I promise. But right now we need to think this through.”

Maya hesitated, but nodded. They’d seen it coming. They’d always expected that one day Jack would let them succumb to their own corruption. This was what they’d spent years preparing to stop. This was the only reason Maya hadn’t left the people of Sanctuary.

She almost left once. She wanted to return to her home country of Athenas. But then she saw a guard force a pregnant woman to her knees at gunpoint all over suspicion that she’d stolen some fruit from a nearby stall. She’d watched helpless as the man ruthlessly yelled at her and hurt her just for daring to deny his accusations. Maya did nothing that day and after that, swore that she’d never do nothing again.

She knew that one day things would get worse. And if she ran, she’d just be part of the problem. Perhaps that’s why it hurt to not be able to do anything now.

She returned to the real world when Roland gestured for her to follow. The two snuck back inside the base where Axton and Patricia awaited.

“What was that noise?” Tannis was the first to speak up, as per usual. Axton still had his hand on her shoulder, holding her back. Maya could tell that he was the only thing keeping their researcher inside.

“Gunshot,” she choked out, still recovering. They had always known this day would come, but that didn’t make it any easier for Maya to say. “A woman tried to leave and they shot her right in the head.”

“Shit,” was all Axton could say.

Roland nodded in agreement with Axton’s reaction. “The first shot has been fired and we know what that means. They will not hesitate to hurt us.”

A somber silence filled the room for a few seconds before Tannis spoke up. “Then it’s time to enact the plan.”

Tannis said what no one else had the guts to say. It was time to fight back. They’d been preparing for the moment Hyperion sent them to shit for years but the prospect of actually overthrowing the government was still horrifying.

Roland nodded in agreement after a moment of reluctance. “Let’s call Lilith. She should be able to get Brick and Mordecai here in under a day.”

But Tannis shook her head. “As soon as I heard the gunshot, I tried to call her-”

“And I tried to stop her!” Axton added. Maya rolled her eyes.

“But,” she continued, “we got no signal, no way to contact anyone outside Sanctuary. We believe they foresaw this coming and shut down any way we had to get help from the outside.”

Maya spoke up next. “If that’s the case, then the next step is sending a party out to get her.”

“We can’t leave Sanctuary behind,” Axton responded, a worry in his voice.

“But we can’t do this fight alone,” Roland answered, placing his hands on the table. “Tannis and I will stay behind with Sanctuary. Axton and Maya… I need the two of you to get Lilith, Brick, and Mordecai. Once they’re here, I’ll have the two of you go after the others.”

Axton frowned and awkwardly raised his hand with a question. “But won’t that get us killed?”

Maya stepped towards the table, getting an idea. “The sewers. They can’t catch us if we go through the sewers… Right? Their eyes are on the main gate, it’s the most secure way out.”

While Patricia and Axton looked at her in disgust, Roland just nodded.

“Siren’s right. They’re the fastest way out and they should be safe from Jack’s men.”

Axton’s hand shot back up. “But-”

“That’s an order, soldier.”

**\---**

**SPRINGS’ EMPORIUM O’ STUFF, CONCORDIA, 3:26 PM**

**ATHENA, CODENAME: GLADIATOR**

“I’m back, Janey.”

The little bell rang as Athena entered the store. She almost offered a wave to a customer, but quickly turned into the office instead, ignoring the customers as she threw her duffel bag down on the desk. Janey was sitting down, fixing some random contraption Athena didn’t recognize.

“Hey, Athena!” Janey set down her tools, looking up at Athena with a smile. “How was the job?”

Athena knew Janey was just being polite. She’d never been a fan of Athena’s freelancing. Always deemed the whole hired enforcement thing as too violent. Private security was just like that, though. A good job but destined to create some sort of rift between the worker and her maybe-girlfriend.

“Just the usual.” That was always her response and Janey never pushed for more.

“That’s good,” she responded. “Hey, did you see the Meriff’s announcement? Blah, blah, blah, sickness. Blah, blah, blah, suggested quarantine. I don’t know. I can’t shut down my store with rent due this week, but I’m gonna place some restrictions. They won’t apply to you of course.”

“An honor.” Athena sat down in front of her, watching her fiddle with her weird metal scraps. “Did you hear what kind of sickness or did you only hear three words out of the whole announcement?”

“I heard at least five,” she joked. “And he didn’t say. Just that it’s a good idea to be careful and stay away from sick people.”

“That feels like common sense.”

“Eh, you’d be surprised how dumb people are.”

“Well, I’m afraid a suggested quarantine won’t get me out of work-”

Their conversation was cut off suddenly by a loud alarm and an announcement beginning to play over the speakers outside.

“People of Concordia.” It was the Meriff. “Earlier today, I made an announcement requesting that our people be safe in the face of a sickness spreading across our country. After an… announcement from our wonderful president, I must exchange that request for a requirement.

“People are dumb, this is for the best,” Janey threw in, earning herself a gesture to shut up from Athena. 

“As of right now, the gates to Concordia are closed. Business will continue as usual inside, but no one will enter or leave the city. Hyperion military personnel will be joining our own law enforcement to ensure our testing. That is all.”

Athena and Janey stared at each other, very confused. 

“That’s…” Athena frowned. “That’s not quarantine. That’s imprisonment.”

Janey nodded in agreement. “You’re right… People may be dumb, but I don’t think this calls for martial law.”

Athena stood up and turned, directing her attention outside. The Meriff wasn’t lying about the Hyperion military. “Business as usual is not what this is. Call Roland, will you?”

Janey nodded, picking up her ECHOphone. She dialed a number but all that came through was static. “Sounds like communications to Sanctuary are down.” She tried again, this time to call Lilith. Static. “That’s a negative too. I was wrong. All Concordia services are down. It doesn’t look like I’m getting any connection outside of calling either.”

Athena frowned and picked up her bag. “Get packed, we’re leaving. Moxxi has a hidden way out through her bar.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Janey asked, standing up as well.

A scream outside and splatter of blood on the store window gave them the answer they needed. 

“Yeah… I don’t think we have any other options.”

**\---**

**HELIOS SHOPPING CENTER, 3:38 PM**

**RHYS, CODENAME: COMPANY MAN**

Rhys and Vaughn just wanted to visit their favorite diner, but here they were. Hiding under an uncomfortably short table as the restaurant went to shit around them.

“On the count of three, bro,” Vaughn announced, peeking out. He pulled his head back after just a few seconds, obviously terrified by something he saw. He took a deep breath and started the countdown to their escape.

“One…” 

Rhys stretched his neck out, in horrible pain from having to fit his huge body beneath the table. He was too tall for this hiding place.

“Two…”

Vaughn clasped his hands together, desperately attempting to calm down the shaking. The screaming outside of their little hiding place wasn’t quite good for his nerves.

“Three!”

The duo awkwardly clambered out from under the table and sprinted out of the restaurant, barely succeeding in their attempts to ignore the screaming and fighting in the diner behind them. They turned into an alleyway and backed up against the hard brick wall to catch their breath.

“Rhys… What was that?!” Vaughn looked up at his friend, eyes wide with concern.

“I have... no idea!” Rhys had his hands on his knees and was hunched over, desperately attempting to catch his breath. Running from bloodthirsty humans wasn’t a thing he did often. But apparently Vaughn did. His little friend seemed perfectly fine after all that sprinting.

“The way they got bit!” Vaughn made a weird little zombie noise. “And then started biting!” Another weird zombie noise. “They’re like zombies!”

“Not ‘like’ zombies, Vaughn! Those things were zombies! Now, where’s the best place to set up base?” Leave it to the two of them to start geeking out over this. Thus began a back and forth of Vaughn’s suggestions and Rhys’ nerdy reasoning as to why it wouldn’t work.

“School?”

“All the way across town. We’ll never make it in time.”

“Um, restaurant?”

“We were just there, Vaughn.”

“Oh, right. Then maybe… Maybe we should just go back to the office? The vending machine is pretty nice.”

Rhys nodded. He could get behind that. “Alright! Yvette’s there too and we need to get her anyway.”

One of the monsters sprinted past the alleyway, leading to Rhys nearly jumping in Vaughn’s arms. Nearly meaning he definitely made a move towards it.

“Yeah, we should get going. It’s probably not a good idea to wait around.” Rhys awkwardly scratched the back of his head as he spoke, trying to ignore how he almost jumped into Vaughn’s strangely muscular embrace.

“You got it, bro. To the office!” 

The two took off running, oddly into the whole zombie apocalypse thing. In their defense, they thought it was confined to Helios. The place was an entire gated city with the world’s best military presence. There was no way a virus could escape. If only they knew.

**\---**

**MORDECAI’S RESIDENCE, FYRESTONE, 4:02 PM**

**LILITH, CODENAME: FIREHAWK**

Lilith banged on the door, almost ready to barge into the house. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“MORDECAI! GET YOUR ASS TO THE DOOR!”

She had never been very proper, especially not with her friends. She’d never been very nice with them either.

Mordecai opened the door, greeted by a uniformed Lilith shoving herself through his door.

Lilith was the sheriff of Fyrestone and basically the only officer worth something in the entire town. Roland had once tried to talk her into going to Sanctuary with him and continuing her career there, but she denied his offer. He constantly tried to remind her that she was worth more than some small town gig, but she never listened. Fyrestone was home and she didn’t plan on leaving.

“Really, Lil?” He sighed, rubbing his eyes as he closed the door. “It’s too early for this.”

“It’s four in the afternoon, Mordy.” She stepped past him, taking a seat on a stool at his kitchen island. “Were you drinking last night?”

“Of course I was.” Mordecai crossed over to her, leaning against the island. “Now what are you doing here?” He was right to question her. Lilith only ever came to visit when there was something important to talk about.

“You know that shit I always suspected about Jack and his potential biowarfare department?” Lilith had gotten some intel with Roland during an investigation once and used it to piece together a theory about the research and development division of Hyperion. Of course, no one believed her when she theorized that he had a secret department that specialized in weaponized viruses. They had been too busy investigating other parts of Hyperion. She was the only one who took interest in the potential department.

“The biowarfare department that I’ve already told you doesn’t exist? Yeah, I’ve heard about it.”

Lilith just rolled her eyes. “You and the others might not think it’s important, but I kept my research up.” It never yielded much, but today she’d found proof. Proof in the form of nearly dying. “I’ve seen some weird shit today, Mordy. Shot a man point blank.”

“What the fuck, Lilith?”

She shushed him and continued. “You don’t understand. This man was sick. Frothing at the mouth, looking at me with hollow eyes, and most importantly, bleeding from a huge open neck wound. A bite.” She reached into her purse, pulling out a loose sheet of paper. “These are the notes from the investigation we did that day.”

Mordecai took them from her, looking them over. “Shit…”

“Exactly. We thought they were rumors back then but it’s the truth now.” The research from that day, the investigation they did, it matched perfectly with the monster she had seen earlier.

“We have to tell Roland. If he really has a department that does this, it could mean the end of the world. Have you called him, yet?”

Lilith nodded, sighing. “I tried, but I got nothing. It’s Sanctuary’s connection. I have signals reaching everywhere but the big cities. It’s all shut down. Something’s going on.”

“So what do you need from me?”

“Glad you asked.”

**\---**

**EYE OF HELIOS, 4:48 PM**

**ANGEL, CODENAME: GUARDIAN ANGEL**

Hours had passed since the bite. Angel was now sitting on her bed, wearing a new dress, this time with long sleeves. She had bandaged up her bite but was now desperately tugging at her sleeve, trying to keep it hidden.

Her father paced the room.

“Angel, honey…”

“Yes, dad?”

“You really can’t leave like that.” He turned to look at him, eyes wide. Angel could tell he was stressed. And even if he didn’t know about her bite, she knew his stress was related.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“It’s dangerous out there and I really, really don’t want you to get hurt.”

He knelt down in front of her, reaching out to grab her hands just before she pulled them behind her back.

“I know. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

Jack sighed, but nodded. “Alright. I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt. Some bad things happened out there today, you could have gotten seriously injured.”

“I know. But I’m okay. Nothing happened.” 

Nothing.

“Mr. Wilhelm’s going to be watching over you, okay, sweetie?”

She winced a bit, annoyed by how he treated her like a toddler. She was nineteen and stuck here, but still treated like a toddler.

“Alright. I promise that I won’t leave his side if I leave my room.”

“Good.” He gave her a smile and reached towards her, wrapping his arms around her in a hug that she reluctantly returned.

Angel winced as he brushed against her wound.


End file.
